Heretofore there was proposed a heat-sensitive melt-transfer recording medium wherein a layer of a wax in the form of film was provided on the surface of a heat-meltable colored ink layer to prevent the so-called smudge of a receiving medium, which means the phenomenon that the colored ink layer is transferred to areas of the receiving medium on which no print is to be formed, as disclosed, for instance, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 59-114098 and No. 60-97888.
In the case of the conventional medium having such two-layered construction, a coating amount of not less than 3 g/m.sup.2, preferably from 5 to 8 g/m.sup.2, for the wax layer is required to prevent the smudge.
However, when such a thick wax layer is provided on the colored ink layer, a large quantity of printing energy is required to melt the wax layer for transferring.
When the ink layer is melted with such a small quantity of energy as required for transferring an ink layer of a recording medium wherein no such surface layer is provided, there arises the problem that the ink layer is not transferred satisfactorily, which results in a lowering of the density of a print. When the printing energy is increased in order to solve the problem, there arises another problem that the use of a recording medium having a thick wax layer gives rise to blurring of a print, which results in an impossibility of obtaining a clear print.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a heat-sensitive melt-transfer recording medium which is capable of preventing a receiving medium from smudging and of providing a good print with a small quantity of printing energy.